A continuous receiver can only be utilized where generally continuous communications (as opposed to burst communications as in the present technology) are performed, so as to substantially maintain timing synchronization between the transmitter and the receiver which is necessary for proper reception of the communicated information. During continuous communications, timing recovery is a more straightforward process since signal acquisition generally only occurs at the initiation of such communications. Thus, acquisition is generally only performed in continuous receivers once per continuous transmission and each continuous transmission may be very long.
On the other hand, the burst communications (for instance, for TDMA systems) require periodic and frequent reacquisition of the signal. That is, during TDMA communications, the signal must be reacquired for each separate burst transmission being received.